Sanders acknowledges Israel’s “right to defend itself”, which it actually does not have in this case. Under international law, a state cannot simultaneously exercise control over a territory and then attack it on the claim that it is “foreign” and poses a national security threat.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) itself confirmed that in its 2004 ruling on the apartheid wall Israel was building in the occupied West Bank. The ICJ held that Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which allows for a state to exercise self-defence, does not apply to Israel in the case of an alleged threat from the Palestinians because it occupies them.

Israel has maintained sole and absolute control over Gaza’s boundaries, airspace, and territorial waters since 1967. For decades, it has controlled what goes in and what comes out, who lives and who dies. It does not have “the right to defend itself” against a people whom it fully occupies.